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Exchange Messaging Outlook
Volume 5, Number 17

Greetings! Welcome to Vol. 5, No. 17, of Exchange Messaging Outlook, a biweekly newsletter about Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook.

Today's highlights:
  • Outlook 2001:Mac
  • Irregular appointment recurrences
  • SharePoint Portal Server
  • Nickname resolution
  • Other tech newsletters

Outlook 2001:Mac

A public beta version of the long-awaited Outlook Macintosh client once code-named "Watson" is now available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/mac/outlook/outlook_prod.asp. Not to be confused with Entourage, the new PIM in Office 2001 for Macintosh, Outlook 2001:Mac works only with Microsoft Exchange Server and includes no support for POP or IMAP mail accounts. It offers much greater interoperability with Windows versions of Outlook and a new user interface -- check out the screenshots we've posted at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/mac.htm#ol2001. We'll be adding some tips and tricks for Outlook 2001:Mac to that page.

We've been watching the discussion in the microsoft.public.outlook.mac newsgroup and the user comments on the MacWindows site at http://www.macwindows.com/exchange2k.html. So far, the two biggest missing features seem to be Palm synchronization and the ability to compose HTML messages.

Microsoft product manager David Siroky says they're trying hard to get sync into the final release, planned for this summer. As for HTML, it looks like that will rely on the Exchange Server to do the conversion to and from the rich-text format that Outlook 2001:Mac uses.

Irregular appointment recurrences

Outlook makes it easy to set up an appointment or event that occurs every Wednesday or every other month or once a year. But it doesn't have an obvious way to handle an appointment that occurs at the same time and place, but on Saturday for two months, then on Sunday. In some cases, you may be able to deal with such an irregularly recurring appointment by creating several recurring appointments -- say, one for the Saturday appointments and other for the Sunday occurrences. Another approach is to create one appointment, then hold down the Ctrl key as you drag and drop it on the new dates. The disadvantage in both those approaches is that, if the details of the appointment change, you can't modify the original recurring item and have the changes appear in all the other instances.

We'd be interested in hearing whether you've found any better methods to deal with this situation.

SharePoint Portal Server

The new Microsoft server formerly codenamed "Tahoe" is now officially SharePoint Portal Server. Tahoe combines portal, search, Web Storage System and document management capabilities. You can get more information and a download of Release Candidate 1 from http://www.microsoft.com/servers/sharepoint/eval.htm.

Nickname resolution

The articles in the last two issues of EMO prompted a message from one of our friends at Microsoft Product Support Services, who pointed out that the Nickname field on an Outlook contact is actually used for automatic address resolution, at least some of the time. The problem is that this feature works only if Outlook is in Internet Mail Only mode. It doesn't work for Outlook in Corporate/Workgroup mode. (If you don't know about the differences between the two modes, see http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/choosingmode.htm.)

Other tech newsletters

We're really excited that we can now bring you Exchange and Outlook news every two weeks. Readership for this EMO newsletter has doubled in the last year, thanks in part to our association with FreeTechMail.org, a free global newstand lets you easily sign up for great e-newsletters on many technology topics. Check it out at http://www.freetechmail.org. While you're there, you can also rate and review this EMO newsletter and others you subscribe to.

More Information

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ISSN 1523-7990 Copyright 1996-2011, Slipstick Systems and CDOLive LLC. All rights reserved.

Updated Friday September 09 2011

Copyright Slipstick Systems. All rights reserved.
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